The Philadelphia 76ers are hoping to be one of the teams in the mix for title contention in the wide-open East in the 2025-26 season. The Sixers are still supremely talented on paper led by Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey, but it will all depend on health with this group.
Embiid played a grand total of 19 games in the 2024-25 season and George only played 41. The star trio only played 18 games together and finished only 15 of them due to injuries and ejections and such. The injuries and inconsistencies ruined their chances of winning anything and it resulted in a 24-58 season and missing the playoffs for the first time in eight years.
In terms of their title hopes in the 2025-26 season, Bleacher Report gave the Sixers a grade of “C”:
Besides the obvious injury concerns, this just isn’t a well-put-together roster in Philadelphia.
There’s no true power forward to place between Joel Embiid and Paul George when (if) both are on the floor together. Guerschon Yabusele, one of the lone bright spots of last season, left in free agency to sign with the New York Knicks.
There’s a lot of guards on this roster (Tyrese Maxey, Jared McCain, VJ Edgecombe, Eric Gordon, Kyle Lowry, etc) and not a lot of frontcourt talent to balance things out.
The Sixers will certainly need others to step up and produce over the course of an 82-game season, but it all comes down to whether Embiid and George are healthy in the playoffs, which will decide how deep they go when they get there.